Family Heritage
by Crazy Authoresses CAT and AMS
Summary: Harry finally turns sixteen, and he finds that his father left him a very special "gift" from his animagus days for Harry's 6th year. Now, any time that he's hugged by a member of the opposite sex, he turns into a stag. How cursed can one guy get?
1. Crappy birthday to me

**Family Heritage**

A/N- Gah! Summer break is almost over, and I'm gonna have to (horror of horrors) get a job soon! sigh Well, this is one of my last-chance-for-free-time stories. The real world sucks… ahem Anyhow, I based this loosely off the manga (you know, Japanese comic books? Damn… just lost half of my crowd with that line…) Fruits Basket. No need to fear if you haven't read it, this really isn't it's story line.. but if you really want to know, it's basically about a girl (recently orphaned) who is initially taken in by her grandparents, but when they decide to renovate to make room for their other daughter's family, they ask her to stay with a friend. She, however, is kinda crazy and doesn't want to be a burden to her friends, so she lives in a tent. Yes, a tent. sighs Well, that is, until there's a landslide. Fortunately she's not in it, but meeting the group of three teenaged (ok, one's, like in his 20's) boys that live on the property who are trying to convince her to at least live with them. Call it conscience, call it hormones, but that's just what happens when her "house" is demolished. What she doesn't know, however, is that these boys come from a very influential family who keeps a secret. The highest ranking members of the family are possessed by the spirits of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, so when a member of the opposite sex hugs them, they turn into their representative animal. Awkward? Yes. Fun? Even more so. So by now, you're all wondering (if you're still reading… heehee… I'd just be going on to the story by now…) what the hell does this have to do with Harry Potter, crazy lady? Ahhh, read and you shall find out!

Chapter One- Crappy Birthday to Me…

The sounds of rushed packing wafted up the stairs to greet a bleary Harry on the morning of his birthday. For a split second, Harry thought that perhaps it was his presents being wrapped at the last minute and sat up in bed excitedly. And then reality came crashing down on him, crushing his spirit completely.

_What a great way to start out a birthday... _Harry muttered to himself, sitting up in bed and ruffling his hair disgruntledly.

Of course, by now he had learned to ignore the disappointment that always came hand in hand with his birthday. It did, however, strike him odd that _no_ birthday greetings had arrived. He definitely had more than three friends now, but far from getting more gifts than usual, the number had dwindled depressingly to zero. Joy. Still, his sixteenth birthday couldn't be spent in bed just because his friends' owls were late (or so he hoped) and curiosity was gradually getting the better of him. He dressed quickly and crept downstairs, where he spied all three Dursleys convened on the living room sofa, Dudley and Vernon taking up over ninety percent by sheer combined bulk, while Petunia sat quivering between them. Harry mused for a moment on how it was a miracle that she didn't suffocate, and that sadistic corner of his mind wondered what would happen if the two took a deep breath at the same time. He shook his head with an evil grin, willing himself to erase the image of an asphyxiated Petunia stuck to Dudley's arse, but was shocked out of his fantasy by Vernon's bellowing voice.

"I WILL NOT RUN AWAY, PETUNIA!!"

Petunia twittered a scold in a much softer voice than usual, and Vernon grudgingly lowered his voice as well. Dudley ignored them both, the horribly tinny music from his Gameboy drowning out any chance of Harry overhearing the conversation. Faced with even the slightest possibility of the Dursleys leaving for today of all days, Harry grinned and decided to creep back upstairs to find his secret weapon. After a few minutes of rummaging through his rather disorganized trunk, he emerged with his prize: the only thing he could use to explain the Dursleys behavior. He slunk down the stairs once more and slowly lowered an Extendable Ear through the two slats in the railing closest to the couch. Dudley's Gameboy music grew louder in his ear, making him want to either slam his head or the toy into the wall until one broke. Still, now he could hear snatches of his aunt and uncle's conversation when Dudley wasn't muttering samurai noises under his breath.

"But Verrrrrrnon, the only time we don't have trouble on _this day_ is when we are away from _him_." Petunia whined shrilly, "We certainly can't rush Dudley-kins to the hospital again for emergency surgery. It's best to stay out of the way, and—"

"YOU EXPECT ME TO LEAVE MY OWN HOUSE IN FEAR OF THOSE FREAKS???" Vernon bellowed, deafening Harry to everything but a loud ringing.

"Don't worry, mum and dad, I'm learning special ninja moves that I can use against those freakin' wizards." Dudley mumbled, frantically pushing his keypad.

"Dudley-dinkies, how many times do I have to tell you? Just because you play characters with those kind of martial arts skills doesn't mean that you can face a real wizard, dear."

Dudley and Vernon snorted at the same time, reminding Harry of a father-son team of bulls.

"Nonsense, Petunia! Dudley's a national finalist in boxing, you know. He could take down any wizard before they even drew their wands."

"Dear." She said nervously, "I keep telling you, if you don't watch out, you could bring some unwanted attention to us or wake up the Boy or—"

She was interrupted by the doorbell's ring, which made her jump from her seat and position herself in front of Dudley as fast as she could.

"Look what you've done now, Vernon! I told you—" Petunia quavered.

Meanwhile, Vernon had grabbed the nearest available object (a particularly ugly 4-Euro vase Aunt Marge had picked up in Germany) and marched up to the door.

"SHUT UP, WOMAN! YOUR TWITTERING ISN'T HELPING." Vernon roared, opening the door and poising the vase for a blow.

Much to his surprise, however, it was a woman in her middle-thirties waiting on his step, wearing a professional-looking suit. She (and several of the neighbors watering their grass) looked at him strangely and backed away slightly.

"Err… excuse me? Have I come at a bad time?" She said, raising an eyebrow in disapproval at the vase.

"WE DON'T WANT ANY BLOODY SALES! WE JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!"

By then, Vernon had succeeded in having just the opposite happen. All the neighbors within ear-range were now peering out their windows or bending down on the pretense of caring for their garden plot, watching Vernon Dursley turn purple with rage for no apparent reason. Petunia hurriedly lowered the "weapon" for her husband, grinning at her neighbors as though nothing unusual had happened. The woman glowered and pointed fiercely at her Mercedes, which had the words "St. Mungo's Institute for Incurably Criminial Boys—Social Services" emblazoned on the red paint in silver lettering.

"Mr. Dursley!" She exclaimed, just loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear, "This is abominable behavior! I am Ms. Eliza Ritchford, and I work for St. Brutus' Institute. Every so often during the summer, we conduct surprise inspections on the families of the boys to see if perhaps their behavior is in any way caused by family abuse. In many cases such as your own, a distant relative is adopted and ignored or mistreated by the family, leading to the child's destructive behavior: their cry for help. Naturally, we'll have to have a formal investigation of you and your family, Mr. Dursley. Now, step aside. I'd like to interview Mr. Potter, if you don't mind."

Petunia blanched and buried her head in her hands, mortified, while Vernon continued to turn purple. Several neighbors, in fact, had wagers starting on whether he'd have a heart attack. Odds were leaning heavily towards it.

"Errr, actually, you caught us at a rather bad time. We have to be off to visit a sick relative in Bristol." Petunia stammered, dashing inside to gather up her family's luggage (an admirable feat for a woman so small) and herded her son and husband out the door in no more than two minutes.

"A pleasure to meet you, I'm sure." The woman said, wrinkling her nose in distaste, "We shall be contacting you with a date for the psychological evaluations."

She turned on her heel and entered the house as the Dursleys peeled out of the drive.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Harry gaped, stunned that the woman had stood up to a man roughly seven times her size who had wielded a vase.

_Maybe it's someone from the Order of the __Phoenix_ Harry thought hopefully, but even then he refused to let his hopes get too high.

She shut the door firmly behind her, and Harry half-wished by the intimidating look on her face that he hadn't forgotten his wand in his room when he'd gone to get his Extendable Ears. Then, the woman's features began to shift. The small wrinkles began to fade, her stature grew a few inches, and her slick blond bun slowly turned a light brown and grew in volume exponentially. Within two minutes, a beaming Hermione stood in front of him, arms spread.

"SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRY!" She cried, giving him a tight squeeze.

And that was when it all started to go wrong.. Hermione jumped back startled and let out a sharp cry. Where Harry had just been standing was now occupied by a full-sized stag.

_WHAT THE HELL?_ Seemed to be the last thing echoing through her head before everything went black.

A/N- Oh, my… crazy, huh? Told you that you didn't need to know the plot! Whew I have way too many stories left to update right now, but this idea is really fun to me. I'll need at least…eh… five reviews to update immediately. Gah.. I hate doing review ransom, but I have about five other stories going right now… grins Well, I hope you all liked it! More chaos to come in the next chapter! Ron and a few others show up, and Harry figures out what birthday gift his dad left him and the consequences! TTFN, and know that if you review, you get eternal gratefulness and love from yours truly… and the periwinkle box…


	2. Changes

**Family Heritage**

A/N- Wow, a review ransom granted and then some! More than double, actually! Ah, I love this section. Still, I'll probably be beaten or lose a few hours of sleep in writing this! Heehee… We're in the middle of a scary packing storm, and I swear that Canadian (why Canadian? I live in OH, and I figure it's a better shot if I say somewhere almost bordering me…eh?) terrorists have blown up my room. Gah… Still, this is definitely more fun! A word to the reviewers: xPussyWillowKittenx- -grins- It was some fun thinking about that. I might even put in a bit more of the Dursleys. Still not too sure… Angel of Slytherin- I warned you it'd be crazy! Heehee…, diamond004- Thanks! Most of my stories are "different" –grins-, Enoon- Like I said, I love this section. –grins- Thanks for the compliments! Lonely Magician- Thanks! Yeah, I based it off of it, but none of the chars will show up. Gryffindor620- You were pondering what I was! Well, probably at least. Heehee.. most of my HP stories end up that way… Hermione-Granger17- I had fun writing their descriptions, too. I love being crazy… heehee Kallan Myers- I can hear the WTF from here –grins- but thanks for reviewing! Nymoue- Cool… another "strange"! Heehee… thanks for the compliments! PhiloNysh- Ooooo, "Extremely well written, and highly entertaining"? I'm gonna get a big head. –grins- Merci beaucoup! LoonyLupin- Thanks (Yay! Favorites…! I feel so lurved!) luvsirius- Oh, a faithful reviewer! Thanks for the compliments! eat paper- Merci!! I'll try to keep it up!

Thanks to everyone else, too… I just thought this was getting a bit long, but I really appreciate the reviews! Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that you're all very nice for using the periwinkle box and meeting my goal! And yes, it was weird. And it will most likely stay that way. –grins maniacally- Consider yourself warned.

Chapter Two: -cue David Bowie music- Ch-ch-ch-changes…

A few minutes later, Hermione woke up, half on and half off a strange floral couch in a stuffy living room cluttered with tiny porcelain ornaments and family pictures.

_It was all a dream…_Her brain insisted, and yet… she didn't think that even her imagination could come up with something that weird. She sat up and rubbed her head, only to find a stag's head bending uneasily down toward her.

_I think I need to lay down again…_She thought uneasily, unable to repress the events of the last quarter-hour in her memory, try as she might..

"Oh, God, Harry." She murmured anxiously, "What did you _do_?? It's not underage magic, is it? Fudge could try to expel you again! And these sorts of charms are very advanced--"

"I didn't do anything!" Harry protested, supremely panicked, "This has never happened before! Besides, you're doing magic illegally with that whole transformy-thingy, too!"

Hermione groaned and buried her head in her arms, half in hope that she'd been hallucinating and that her friend had not suddenly turned into a demented full-sized version of Bambi.

"Harry," she murmured from between her arms, "This is dire. It's border-line animagus, for goodness sakes! It's highly dangerous if you don't know what you're doing! You don't want to end up with permanent antlers, do you?"

Harry moaned and shook his head in frustration, taking out a few shelves of Petunia's porcelain knick-knacks and sending the shards crashing to the floor. Hermione slid away from the wreckage slightly and kicked a particularly ugly china frog's head across the room miserably.

"This is bad, Harry. Really, really bad."

"I don't understand it either, but what's so bad, besides the obvious? It's not like anyone saw…"

Hermione paled and groaned.

"It's not that simple! Everyone is coming here; I just came first to get the Dursley's out of the house. Which was eerily easy, by the way."

Harry sighed and tried to find a comfortable way to sit with his new form, which resulted in the demise of Petunia's collection of ceramic pigs. The living room was beginning to look like the proverbial bull-in-a-china-shop had rampaged through… or to be more accurate, stag.

"Yeah, well they _have_ had some bad experiences on my birthday. They wanted to be prepared to run away." Harry muttered bitterly, "Not that I have a problem with that. Best birthday gift they've ever given me, actually."

Hermione made a sympathetic noise, and Harry shook off his bad temper, remembering what she had just told him.

"…But who _is_ everybody? The Order?"

Hermione blushed furiously and said mumbled something underneath her breath.

"What?" Harry asked impatiently.

"See, last year when you were shut up here all summer, I got to thinking about how bad it's gotta be living with relatives that don't acknowledge you—or worse, hate you. I mean, you haven't had a decent birthday in 15 years! So, I…err… thought that we'd throw you a surprise party. It's just—the members of the Order weren't exactly thrilled about it."

Harry rose to his feet (or, to be more precise, hooves) furiously and snorted.

"What's their problem now?"

"Well, most of them didn't want to take the risk of us drawing attention to ourselves by planning such a noticeable convention. The protection here might guard you and your family, but Dumbledore wasn't sure what would happen when we came out again, you know? He thought that it was possible that an attack like last year's could occur, and he didn't want to risk leaving the Headquarters unmanned." Her voice took on a very slight tone of exasperation, "He keeps on telling us that we have to be careful now that Voldemort has risen again and that rashness is fatal and that this sort of war is played by watching and waiting. That's why I haven't been spending the summer with my parents and why he rather disapproved of this. It's like shining a big beacon on something that would have otherwise been overlooked."

Harry scoffed softly and Hermione grinned rather evilly.

"But, you know, you always manage to get yourself into some kind of trouble over summer break, so we decided that we should be here to help you out when you do. So we snuck out for the day, and Tonks gave me a dormant charm to disguise myself."

Hermione looked at Harry's puzzled face and gave him a very fake know-it-all sigh. Ron had acted the same way when Tonks had brought up dormant charms, even though Flitwick _had_ to have brought them up around two times in passing. Of course, in six years together she'd grown accustomed to the fact that Harry and Ron seldom paid attention in class, and a question like this was downright welcome compared to some of the others she'd been asked that day. At least she knew the answer to this one…

"A dormant charm is usually in the form of a written charm, such as the type often found in Chinese magics. You transfer the power of the charm or spell into a physical form, usually on paper, and when it is ready to be invoked, the maker or even someone else can use the power imbued in it. Even muggles have shown a slight ability to work them. Tonks was the obvious one to make my disguise spell; it's a very low-key version of her metamorphagus abilities… it only holds for around a half-hour at a time. She even helped me plan the whole thing out. She was rather upset about missing out on coming, said that now she'd joined the Order, she never had any fun. Still, she thought that living vicariously through me was the next best thing. The plan was for me to send a signal to the others when I'd gotten rid of the Dursleys, so I did before you—err--"

Hermione grinned sheepishly and cut herself off, remembering that the others were due any minute and that Harry was still in his less-than-natural form.

"This calls for drastic measures, Harry. It might take some doing, but I think I'll have to tamper with the structure of the charm." Harry gave her a blank look and Hermione sighed, pursing her lips and pulling quill and a rectangular card out of her cardigan pocket that shimmered with a pulsing multihued light, knowing that he wouldn't know just how difficult this would be. With a look of intense concentration, Hermione scribbled two long sentences in what looked like close to scientific formula and shoved it at Harry, who looked at it warily.

"Come _on_, take it already! It'll only hold for a half-hour, but hopefully it's enough time for you to change back from whatever this is. We'll activate it when—"

She was interrupted by the doorbell's ring, which set both she and Harry into a state of panic

"…they come to the door."

She tossed it into his hands, her eyes widened in panic.

"Now, to activate it, you—"

She stopped, stunned, however, as the air around Harry began to shimmer slightly, replacing the stag with Harry's normal body… in nothing but his boxers. Hermione blushed through her puzzlement and thrust a rather ugly throw blanket from the couch at him, careful not to look below the waist.

"Put that on! What the hell happened to your clothes?? And why did the charm work without you invoking it???" Hermione screeched embarrassedly while the doorbell (most likely rung by Ron) continued to chime annoyingly about twenty times a second.

"I don't know if that was it… but what--?" He began.

"Just use the damned charm, just in case. Say _Metamorphagus_ and it should work. I'll stall them or something! Hide… or at least get dressed!" Hermione flustered, rushing to the door.

And so Harry sprinted up the steps, knowing he was about to miss the beginning of his first birthday party that he could remember.

A/N- Ok, not _as_ funny as the first one (I think…) but this one had to be kinda expository… See? I think I explained most of the plotholes. Patience… And I think I'll try to update it again by Sept.7th (when my school starts), but no guarantees until I post another chappie of all my other stories. We'll see how much attention the periwinkle box gets, too. -winkwinknudgenudge- I have some… interesting ideas for this. Bwahahaahaha -hackhack- ha! But if you want something _really_ madcap, check out my -insert blatant self-advertising here- new chapter of Why Me?, a Harry-Hermione body switching story! Heehee.. ok, you can just ignore my ramblings now.. Anyways, thank you very much for reading and give your attention to the periwinkle box!!!


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